Naotaro Moriyama -- Hibi（日々）

Some weeks ago, when NHK's "Uta Kon"（うたコン）was merely broadcasting a combination of past clips and a couple of artists performing from home, one of the guests was Naotaro Moriyama（森山直太朗）. He's one of the relatively few singers who can put forth a fine falsetto such as in his famous tune "Sakura"（さくら）, and Moriyama that night put out an unplugged version of a 2013 single "Hibi" (Days). The actual footage was up on YouTube but it looks like it has been taken down.

I found "Hibi" to be a nice song to hear especially during these times of social distancing and staying-at-home because the lyrics relate on how to keep on going through the tough times, just by taking things day-by-day. Day-by-day is the one way that I've been enduring staying only within the neighbourhood for the past few months, and I figure that the status quo will remain so for another few weeks at least.

Moriyama and poet/lyricist Kaito Okachimachi（御徒町凧）worked together on both words and music to create "Hibi", the singer's 19th single which peaked at No. 46 on Oricon. I read an article somewhere years ago in which it said that during tough times, soothing ballads tend to come out to the fore. If so, I think "Hibi" would be one of the ideal ones.